Pair will be tasked with baking designs for mankind's first extra-terran outpost

A staple of science fiction for nearly a century, mankind has long dreamt of colonizing the moon. Now those dreams could be a bit closer to reality thanks to an enterprising entrepreneur. He's paired with America's space agency to develop plans for a moon base -- and he's doing it for free to start.

I. Big Science Comes and Goes

Man first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. High on the competitive thrill of the Cold War, the U.S. spent nearly $130B USD in today's money ($25.4B USD back in 1973) to send six manned missions to the moon. The intention was to eventually create a permanent outpost, but by the mid-1970s the U.S. government had shuttered those plans.

Frustrated by close calls and enervated by an easing of Cold War tensions, the U.S. would drop its dreams of lunar colonization, occasionally toying with them in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead it focused its efforts on Earth orbit shuttle missions.

Establishing an extended human presence on the moon could vastly reduce the cost of further space exploration, making possible ever more ambitious missions. Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy and thus far less cost.

[The moon] contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air. With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration -- human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.

He claimed that NASA could return to the moon for $12B USD by 2020. But as the years have rolled on, that figure looked increasingly unrealistic -- both historically and in terms of NASA's current budgetary and brainpower shortages. Experts recently estimated a return trip to the moon would cost around $145B USD.

This week, David Weaver, NASA Associate Administrator, announced that it would conduct an "initial planning phase" study with Bigelow Aerospace with the intent of developing a design for a lunar outpost.

As part of our broader commercial space strategy, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to foster ideas about how the private sector can contribute to future human missions.

This will provide important information on possible ways to expand our exploration capabilities in partnership with the private sector. The agency is intensely focused on a bold mission to identify, relocate and explore an asteroid with American astronauts by 2025 — all as we prepare for an even more ambitious human mission to Mars in the 2030s. NASA has no plans for a human mission to the moon.

Bigelow Aerospace shares many similarities to SpaceX. The Las Vegas-based company was founded in 1998 by a Robert Bigelow, who made his wealth off of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain he owned managed. The company's trademark is low-cost inflatable spacecraft made from high-tech materials.

Your ignorance is staggering if you believe that the Moon is a good test bed to develop and test "technologies required to exist in an extended sense" on Mars or in space. Presumably you have some kind of sentimental attachment to the notion of a Moon base, you have certainly not based your based your assessment on detached logic. A combination of Earth and LEO would be much more convenient. As a destination, the Moon is good for only one thing: scientific study.

btw, is that the same shuttle program that cost $1,460,000,000 per flight ($196Billion total project cost for 134 missions), killed 14 astronauts and condemned NASA to over 30 years of going no further than LEO. Yeah, you must have some experience in the field.

mjv.theory you are a moron. Sad you would use the deaths of astronauts in your arguments, says a lot about your lack of any character. No attachment to moon missions and I was merely a scientist attached to the shuttle program along with some other programs. So it's seems in the world according to mjv I am at fault for being a scientist employed within in a ridiculously inefficient government program...

Your experience seems to revolve around trolling which you get 5 stars for. Perhaps someone will give you that pony after all.

The basis of the argument at hand is whether a Moon base would be of benefit in preparing for more distance solar system exploration and colonisation. With regard to colonisation, the only likely targets are Mars and space-stations. Neither of these scenarios are a good match for a Moon "test bed". Anyone travelling from Earth and going beyond the Moon would certainly not benefit from stopping at the Moon to re-launch. Chemical propellent remains the best solution for launching from planetary bodies, specifically Earth, Mars and the Moon. Whilst some form of plasma electric or nuclear thermal propulsion are far better suited to travel between destinations. So chemical propellent potentially manufactured on the Moon is in reality of little benefit.Manufacturing large interplanetary space-craft is much more easily achieved and convenient from LEO than the Moon. In short, the arguments for the Moon as Spaceport, spacecraft factory, fuel depot or Mars test-bed are all plainly flawed in several respects.

quote: No attachment to moon missions and I was merely a scientist attached to the shuttle program along with some other programs. So it's seems in the world according to mjv I am at fault for being a scientist employed within in a ridiculously inefficient government program...

So no "experience" in the field of using the Moon as a test bed for Mars or as a solar system exploration base. Yet you felt compelled to inform us all of your NASA connection as though it somehow added authority to your prior ill thought out arguments. The quote above certainly tells us something about your ability to construct a logical argument.

I am happy to admit my resentment for the shuttle program that was such a waste of human resources and not only failed to advance humankind in the exploration of space but actually retarded those hopes. That said, mention of the lost astronauts was perhaps beneath me. As for "moron" and "troll", both are quite obviously false by any calculation. As to the quality of the argument and the manner in which you have conducted yourself in both your posts, we might only assume to be a reflection of your character.